Some of the widely used monitoring systems include multiple cameras set up in a monitored area and a monitor adapted to display a monitoring screen in which multiple display sections are arranged to display in real time captured images taken by respective cameras so that a monitoring person can monitor the monitored area. In such a monitoring system, if the monitoring person finds a suspicious person in the monitoring screen, the monitoring person will keep track of the suspicious person while watching the multiple display sections in the monitoring screen to see how the person behaves thereafter.
In a case where the monitoring person keeps track of a person while watching the multiple display sections in the monitoring screen as mentioned above, the monitoring person is required to determine the display section in which the person will appear (or be displayed) next from the direction of movement of the person being monitored, but if it took much time to determine the next display section, the monitoring person may lose sight of the person to be monitored. Therefore, a configuration to reduce the burden of the monitoring person and allow tracking of a person to be carried out smoothly is demanded.
With regard to such a demand, a technology is conventionally known in which based on information such as a direction of movement of a person being monitored, the camera that will next capture the image of the person is predicted, and the display section displaying the captured image taken by this camera is displayed adjacent to the display section in which the person being monitored currently appears (refer to JP2005-012415A). A technology is also known in which a monitoring screen is displayed such that the monitoring screen includes a map image representing a monitored area, on which images representing cameras (camera marks) and display sections for displaying the captured images taken by the cameras are arranged (refer to JP2010-268186A).
In a case where the camera that will next capture the image of the person being monitored is predicted as in the technology disclosed in JP2005-012415A, if a failure occurs in detecting the direction of movement of the person being monitored or the like, a wrong camera may be predicted, and this may cause the monitoring person to lose sight of the person being monitored. Thus, a configuration which, upon occurrence of a failure in detecting the direction of movement of the like, makes an appropriate correction in accordance with a correction instruction input by the monitoring person is demanded.
With regard to such a demand, a technology is known in which a tracing device is configured to perform a tracing process using a point of interest set on a moving object and, if the tracing of the point of interest becomes difficult, change the point of interest in accordance with a correction instruction input by a user (monitoring person) to thereby continue the tracing process (refer to JP2007-272732A).